


Not quite right

by suddenrain



Category: The Beatles (Band)
Genre: Gen, Scifi stuff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:15:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21588967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suddenrain/pseuds/suddenrain
Summary: October ‘58.Sleepy Liverpool was waking up to a pleasant surprise: her damp streets had been dried by a blazing sun.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	1. Good day sunshine

October ‘58.

Sleepy Liverpool was waking up to a pleasant surprise: her damp streets had been dried by a blazing sun.

No one knew what had pushed the climate department to grant this unexpected day of perfect weather. The reason had not circulated. Maybe there wasn’t one. Maybe it was just another trick of the Odds.

Nothing special planned for today. The day would unfold in its own lazy way, as the dirty river flowed, as the muddy yellow leaves decayed under the bridge.

Whitechapel shopping street, all angles and pavements. City-dwellers parading in well-ironed suits under watchful bull's-eyes, pretending they had somewhere to go. Everybody was happy to fulfill their role, even the man who washed the shop windows. But his squeegee had just fallen from his hands.

"Watch your step, lad! Don’t go pushing people like that!"

"Wha’? Sorry, do you have a _problem_?"

The crouching man shivered, feeling the sting of the voice’s hostile edge. He lifted his eyes from the ground and gulped. The teenager who had jostled him was now towering over him and had trapped him in his unwavering stare. Any depth those almond eyes could have had was hidden under a dim glaze of apathy.

Beads of sweat formed on the window washer’s temples. This lad had to be part of those new gangs of teens the TV had told him about. He noticed that the young man’s reddish quiff reached a remarkable height- a likely sign of his high rank among the thugs. He wasn’t sure, though. He hadn’t read all the books, hadn’t gone out of his way to find the information. But now that he was thinking about it, he knew he had already seen the boy's face somewhere before, perhaps in the newspaper, which he reckoned wasn't a good sign.

"That's right, keep your mouth shut and you won’t get your head knocked off" the teen spat at his stunned silence.

A younger boy had appeared by the bully’s side. His round cheeks and eyes made him look much more innocent than the other; yet, his smile was dripping with contempt.

“Come on, Johnny, let’s leave the poor man alone.” he told his friend, who just shrugged in response.

And without another word, they went off their merry way.

The threatening mask glued on John’s face was quickly pealed off and replaced by a relaxed grin. It was always fun playing the tough Teddy boy, when he only was a mere impersonator. The side effect of cool fashion choices was that out-of-touch squares immediately assumed you were a delinquent. Well, he didn’t have time to care. Let them stay inside the neat little borders of their narrow minds. Unless they were aunt Mimi, they usually were too afraid to confront him and left him alone, which suited him just fine.

It was a most excellent day of skiving off school and hanging around town with a good friend. The boys were coming back from their temple and playground, Beaver Radio, heavier with a few nicked rock'n'roll records they had safely lodged under their armpits. They were looking forward to enjoying their booty at home, but they still didn’t feel they were in a rush, and kept walking at a leisurely pace. They wanted nothing more than to bask in the sunshine and get turned on by the buzz of the city.

There were swarms of girls flitting between shops or sipping cherry colas behind cafe counters. They looked like spring flowers in their wind-swept candy-coloured skirts. The two teenagers looked around in awe, taking it all in like a breath of crisp fresh air. Everything seemed more beautiful when you made a point of admiring it long enough. The patterns woven into everyday life were waiting to be marvelled at: the shopkeepers' crooked mugs, the short-haired dogs, the long-haired dogs, the barber's frown as he sculpted moustaches, grinning, grumbling, gossiping customers, sexy glossy averts next to stern traffic signs, endless rows of chimneys, of green apples, of fairy cakes, of coffee cups, tightrope walker cats on battered drainpipes, elders and toddlers on bicycles, earrings of all shapes and materials, seagulls coveting the wide-eyed silver carcasses on the fishmonger's stall... And up above, the blue cloudless sky, bigger, emptier than ever.

"Ciggie, John?"

John nodded absent-mindedly, and a cigarette materialized between his lips. Although he was younger, there was no doubt about it: Paul was a top bloke. Ever since they had met, the two of them had only grown closer to each other. It was inevitable that they would get along so well, really. They had a mutual understanding of life, as both lived in the same mad bubble of music that conveniently shielded them from the world. It was exactly what John needed, especially since Julia...

He didn't get enough time to follow this doomed train of thought, startled by a sudden grip on his arm. Paul was holding onto him for dear life, his face white as a sheet. He looked like he had just been visited by a ghost, and John had never seen him looking so freaked out before.

"What's the matter with you, son?" he asked, trying not to sound too concerned.

"She. She was just there!" Paul exclaimed, pointing at an empty corner of the street with a trembling finger.

"What are you talking about? Who was there?"

But Paul had run off to the place he had shown.

She was wearing a long, dark green raincoat, white pumps, and her black hair was styled in a heavy bun sagging at the back of her neck. Leaning on a brick wall, her face half hidden behind her popped collar, she had tried to gain his attention by a discreet hand gesture as the boys were coming closer to the intersection. He had recognized her immediately. As soon as their eyes had met, an anxious shadow had crossed her face, and she had walked away with a stiff gait, disappearing behind the corner. She was following a strange trajectory, winding but calculated, as if to avoid invisible predators huddled in shop windows or perched on street lights.

"Mum! Wait!" he heard his own cracking voice shout out.

The only thing he felt as he ran was his hammering heart, which seemed to have tripled in size and weight, bouncing around like a big ball between his ribs. The rest of him was a flow of adrenaline, as light as air.

He soon caught sight of her again. She was about thirty feet ahead of him, and had stopped walking to turn and face him. He slowed down and went up to her, gazing at her in disbelief. She had a quivering smile on her lips, but her mind was elsewhere, and a worried crease deepened between her eyebrows.

“I'm here, love."

She was so close to him now, her voice so clear. His nose began to itch: he was on the verge of crying. He was dazzled by a face that he should have never seen again, smelling a warm scent that was stirring painful memories from their sleep under the thin and dusty veil of grief. He tried to reach her, needed to touch her, but then she was not there. Swept away by an incoming tide of passer-byes. Paul’s eyes widened in horror as her body was engulfed by the wave, her arm stretching toward him in a desperate impulse. He looked as her hand moved around searching for his but only grabbing air, until a fat woman wrapped in frothy frills obscured her from his view.

He wanted to scream, to run after her, but he was petrified. Her warmth was leaving him as she was taken further away. His skin prickled at the furtive glances of the crowd, gliding on him like icy currents.

"What's got into you, mate!" said a breathless voice behind him. "Leaving the village idiot without supervision!"

Paul’s hands closed into fists as John clasped his shoulder and shook him lightly. Despite the lighthearted tone, he sensed that his friend hadn't appreciated being left behind. Well, he would tell him that he had thought he had recognized Brigitte Bardot or Queen Elizabeth, John would roll his eyes and forgive him by calling him a daft lad, and everything would be alright.

He could not tell anyone. He was nauseated by the thought of people saying, voice full of faked pity: "Oh, poor boy, his mother's death affected him so much, now he has hallucinations." They would think he had gone insane, and ask for him to be discarded in a psychic ward like a dirty piece of dysfunctional junk. And telling his brother or his father was not an option: they would be upset by what they would think were hurtful lies.

But he knew what he had seen, and he was going to act accordingly.

“We’d better get going. We’re going to miss the next bus to Allerton.” he heard himself say to John, his tone drained out of any trace of emotion.


	2. Six feet under

The wind howled in the cedar trees and echoed between the graves. The unexpected sun had finally plummeted below the horizon and given way to a rainy moon. Paul was digging.

He could feel the cold spreading through every one of his limbs. The harsh friction of the head of the shovel against the earth was like music to his ears. Beneath each pile of dirt he would tear off the ground, the same inexhaustible black substance would be facing him again. He was nothing but effort, his skin weeping sweat, his belly hollowing like an alcove, his joints crunching like dry branches. The wooden handle had become an extension of his feverish arms.

Hours passed. Every time he lifted his nose to the sky, the moon had made long strides. His body had stretched and bowed, casting the long gloomy shadow of a bent reed. He had to spend more and more energy to swing dirt out of the hole, otherwise a shower of dust and gravel would fall on top of his head. It was so tempting to lie and sink into the soft peat soil and not get up again. But his inner voice kept chanting, imperious: six feet under, six feet under, and he kept going.

He feared he would soon see the curtain of night rise on dawn. Yet, he was even more afraid that if he kept going deeper down this messy tunnel he was digging, there would be a fatal moment when all the unstable bits of earth on the edge of the chasm would fall down and riddle his back, when the walls of mud would close in on him, suffocating him in their thick paste, and he would have buried himself like a twat, and the night would be eternal.

After a while he could not hear the wind anymore. He was alone in semi-darkness. When the last moonbeams slid down his shoulders, a sigh of relief finally froze his lips. A loud clank had echoed through his bones : at last, he had hit what he was looking for. He knew that whatever he would find inside the coffin, he would have nightmares of.

He started to shovel around the point of impact to make out the outline, only to stop a few seconds later, stupefied. This made no sense. The coffin could not be as small as the holes in the ground suggested. Well, except in a crazy world where you would bury them vertically.

He knelt and began to scratch like an over-excited dog, dirt slipping under his nails. What he found was...What on earth was this thing doing here? It didn't even look the slightest bit like an urn. It was a small metal case, simple and smooth, with a blinking green diode on top. When he tried to exhume it completely, he was met with resistance. Bundles of cables attached to the front and the back of the case plunged underground on both sides. Pulling at those which came out from the back, he could figure out where they ran by where the earth moved or cracked. His guess was that they were buried parallel to the ground, until they radically changed course and went upwards along the tunnel. Right towards the grave. Paul dropped the cables and leaped to his feet, before he swiftly climbed to the surface.

To his eyes accustomed to the dark, the graveyard was coated with unreal whiteness. He glanced at the strips of street he could see between the bars of the fence that girded the cemetery. Drawn curtains, bird chirps filling the air. Not a soul. It looked like it was still pretty early in the morning, but he had to watch out. The first workers would soon be leaving their homes, and the profaner would run the risk of being caught red-handed.

Wasting no time, he threw himself on his knees before his mother’s grave and dug. He only had to remove a few handfuls of earth to reach the base of the stele. As he did, his fingers felt the plastic sheath of the electric vines, which snaked into a hole in the headstone. Paul wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and groaned in frustration. There was no way he could break the stone to understand what those wires were doing inside it.

He sat there for a while, out of breath and bemused. Thousands of incoherent thoughts crowded his mind. One, however, clearly stood out, ringing louder and clearer than the rest. No coffin lied under her grave. First revelation of this punishing night. Had he dug deep enough to draw this conclusion? He gazed at the red marks that streaked his soiled, aching hands. He believed he had. And, God. Instead of his mother, of the wan body puffed up by death he had mourned, there was a fucking unidentified object, and fucking wires sprawling out of it. Not only did he not understand, but he was terrified. Why had something as cold and foreign as this device been chosen to replace something as human and loved as his mother's body?

Were aliens abducting corpses from the centre of the earth?

A strange light splashed his eye. A ray of sun had bounced against a reflective dot on the gravestone, at the top of Mary's A. Paul leaned in and caressed the smooth surface with his fingertip. The tiny piece of dark glass embedded in the stone, perfectly circular in shape, was staring at him like the eye of a Lilliputian Cyclops. He could have sworn he was looking at the lens of a photographer's camera, only, dozens of times smaller than a regular one.

A creaking sound made him twitch. His eyes flew to the gate of the cemetery, but noone was there. No, it had only been the rusty gate of a garden nearby, through which a man in a boiler suit had just come out. The neighbourhood was waking up, and he had to leave as fast as he could. He was far from having solved the mystery, in fact what he had seen had only made things more complicated. But there was one crucial bit of information he would remember: Mary had come to him, and now he knew that she was buried no more... or that, maybe, she had never been.

**Author's Note:**

> hi  
> not betaed cause finding a beta reader is a pain in the ass  
> but i'm not a native speaker  
> so please  
> if you find mistakes ignore them  
> or better  
> tell me and become my beta


End file.
